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Agricola: France Deck, is the 3rd country expansion released for Agricola. It features 60 new Occupation and 60 new Minor Improvement cards. Of course, the base game is required in order to use these cards. (more…)

Railroads are a common theme in Eurogames. The most popular Eurogame is likely Ticket to Ride. The two most often used mechanics in railroad games are Network Building and Pickup and Deliver. Russian Railroads has neither of these and is instead a pure worker placement game. 2-4 players can participate, it has a play time clocking in around 2 hours, and, in my opinion, it is a solid and complex game. (more…)

Let me begin by admitting that Chrono Cross is an okay game. Its greatest flaw is that it sits in the shadow of its predecessor, Chrono Trigger. Chrono Trigger was and remains a revolutionary RPG. (more…)

I always play with Black. I’m not sure if it started during my only-wear-black-clothes phase (which never really ended), if it stems from leftover teenage angst, or perhaps it just comes from my contrarian nature. Black has always been the go-to game piece. (more…)

Hearthstone is, in its essence, Magic: The Gathering played on a computer. It was developed by Blizzard in the World of Warcraft Universe. Players have a deck of cards, which contain minions and spells, and they seek to destroy the other player before he or she destroys them. Sound like Magic: The Gathering? Yep, except this time creatures are called minions. Same difference, right? (more…)

Despite playing Super Smash Bros. for Wii U for nearly twenty hours just on the weekend of its release, I have taken months to digest it, collect my thoughts, and write about it in a way that masks the foam forming at the corners of my lips. I must confess; Smash Bros. still makes me a giddy 12-year-old boy (more…)

Splendor is a quick game to play, an easy game to teach, and it has a depth of strategy. Splendor plays 2–4 players and is, at its heart, a set collection and optimization game. It has a renaissance gem theme, but the theme is 100% pasted on and means nothing. (more…)

When it comes to FPS games like Wolfenstein: The New Order, I always hold a certain unspoken expectation. It’s an expectation that, well, I can never really put my finger on. Impressive graphics? Hmm, meh. Since my favorite all-time FPS game was released in 2003, I’d be hard-pressed to say that amazing graphics really pull me in. So maybe it’s maneuverability; controls that allow me to use skill and dexterity to the max, controls that feel natural and don’t have me panicking to find that one key in the heat of the moment? (I never have to look at my keyboard when typing or when I’m relaxed, but for some reason, when I’m in-game, moments away from death and need to find that one key to save myself, I look down and it’s like I’m seeing a keyboard for the first time in my life.) Sure, maneuverability is a pretty big deal. (more…)

The scene is a dystopian science fiction world that lives within The Resistance universe (The Resistance being the wildly successful party game of social deduction in which players take on secret roles as either Resistance Operatives or Imperial Spies). We find ourselves living under a government who only cares about profit and greed in all forms. The Resistance Operatives created tension among the leadership and shone a light on the government’s weaknesses, bringing it to a near collapse. Coup is a game that is positioned as something of a sequel to The Resistance. This time players take on the role of a powerful government official. Within this period of unrest, players have a chance to capitalize on their ability to manipulate, bribe, and bluff their way to absolute power. After all, what’s better than power? More power. (more…)

Sometimes you play a game that makes you bash your head against a wall—Ricochet Robots is that game. I don’t just mean that in the sense that this game can be extremely brain-burning, it’s also literally what you do in the game. Ricochet Robots might sound like a convenient use of alliteration but really the game could not be more aptly named. (more…)

At the Gates of Loyang is a resource management game for 2-4 players with a card drafting element designed by Uwe Rosenburg, famed designer of Agricola and Le Harve. The theme of the game involves an Asian farmer planting and then selling vegetables of different types. (more…)

Seemingly forged in the fires of confusion is the somewhat surprisingly good and in other ways underwhelming Hyrule Warriors. I say confusion because few combinations seem less likely than Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda series and Tecmo-Koei’s Dynasty Warriors franchise. While the source material for the theme is all taken from Zelda, the gameplay is indisputably that of Dynasty Warriors. Whether or not this game blights one of Nintendo’s most successful intellectual properties or this game helps broaden the Nintendo brand is a question for another time. For now, let’s focus on what’s important: is Hyrule Warriors a good game? (more…)